RE-IMAGINE Professional Learning Session 1.Pages
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Session One Agenda: Introduction to RE-IMAGINE Professional Learning Welcome and Introduction to the Project and Today’s Session Connection Who are the members of your team and what about them makes them vital to this project? Text Study: Derekh Eretz Zuta: What Makes a Talmid Chacham? Core Discussion One: Shaping Professional Learning Through Beliefs and Assumptions Whether you agree or disagree, these statements will make you think more deeply about professional learning in congregational education. Explore your assumptions and those of your team. Core Discussion Two: Case Study Analysis and Design Considerations for Professional Learning What could professional learning aligned to vision look like? What are the factors that designers must attend to when creating aligned professional learning? Break Core Discussion Three: Making Vision Concrete with an Innovation Configuration Map How can we create a concrete understanding of what the vision will look like when successfully enacted? What will it look like for learner? For teacher? For others? Next Steps • Exploring Beliefs and Assumptions about PL in your synagogue • Developing your Innovation Configuration Map Reflection Today was a professional learning experience for you. As you reflect on what we did and how we did it, what is one aspect of what we did today—whether content, process, or context—that “worked” for you as a learning experience. What made it work? Professional 1! Project Roadmap Professional !2 Text Study: Derech Eretz Zuta Perek 3 After saying the blessing before study, answer the following question. Then, with a hevruta partner, read the text on the next page and discuss the questions on the lower half of this page. Before you study the text: Think of someone you consider to be a wise person. Create a list of the characteristics that make them a wise person. Background Information Derekh Eretz is a minor tractate of the Babylonian Talmud, the quintessential collection of the rabbinic oral tradition. While there is some disagreement, many scholars assume that Derekh Eretz was written during the Babylonian Talmudic period (around the 5th century) and was edited during the Geonic period (8th – 10th century). The term “derech eretz” literally means “the way of the land.” Colloquially, it translates as “common decency,” or “social etiquette.” For the most part Derekh Eretz Zuta, one section of this tractate, addresses the scholar and proper conduct of his life of study. Questions to Consider: 1. Are there characteristic listed in the text that are not clear? If so, which ones? 2. Compare your list of characteristics to the list in the text. Which characteristics are similar and which are different? 3. The Hebrew term for “great scholar” is talmid chacham. The literal translation of Talmid Chacham is “a wise student.” In what ways does this text enhance your understanding of the term “great scholar?” What might be the connection to professional learning? 4. What does this text suggest might be important attributes and behaviors of good teachers or good teaching? Professional 3! חמש עשרה מדות נאמרו בת"ח Fifteen characteristics are mentioned of a Talmid Chacham ואלו הן :And they are נאה בביאתו He is pleasant when he comes in (and when he leaves), חסיד בישיבתו ,He is unassuming in his academy ערום ביראה Discerning in his fear of God פקח בדעת Genuinely wise חכם בדרכיו Wise in his ways כונס וזכרן He gathers knowledge and remembers מרבה להשיב He answers fully שואל כענין Makes his questions relevant ומשיב כהלכה And replies in accordance with the accepted decisions ומשיב על כל פרק ופרק דבר Listens and adds something novel of his own to each and everyProfessional chapter 4! הולך אצל חכם Spends time with a sage ולמד ע"מ ללמד ועל מנת לעשות And learns in order to teach and practice. Professional 5! Shaping Professional Learning Through Beliefs and Assumptions Please go through the survey twice: first circle an answer for each item based on your own belief regarding the statement. Then go back through the items and, for each item, place an X at the point on the scale to indicate the beliefs or assumptions about Professional Learning under which your congregation/school operates currently. 1. Jewish education must address not only what students know but also their actions, beliefs, and sense of belonging. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 2. You cannot teach what you have not experienced yourself. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 3. “One-shot” professional development workshops violate good professional development practice. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 4. Congregational leaders will invest in professional learning that demonstrates impact on the lives of congregants. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 5. Teachers will invest more time and resources in their own learning when they see the synagogue valuing it. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 6. Professional learning for teachers is really about changing the student experience. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 7. Teachers should teach according to the core values and beliefs of the synagogue. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 8. Teachers’ capacity to invent solutions to educational problems is a powerful, untapped resource. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 9. Professional learning has little to do with the synagogue’s educational vision. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 10. To be worthwhile, professional learning has to be designed by outside specialists. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree Professional 6! Questions for discussion in your team: 1. On what items do members of your team personally agree and disagree? Consensus is not expected; have a conversation about the differences in your opinions. Share your thinking with one another. How might professional learning look different in action depending on which of these assumptions you accept or reject? 2. How consistent are your personal assumptions with your views of the beliefs about PD/PL operating in your congregation/school? What do you see going on in the congregation/school that leads you to identify these as the operating assumptions? 3. Be prepared—and choose a spokesperson—to share with the full group one highlight of your discussion that feels like it will have important implications for the work you will do in this project. Professional 7! Shaping Professional Learning Through Beliefs and Assumptions Please go through the survey twice: first circle an answer for each item based on your own belief regarding the statement. Then go back through the items and, for each item, place an X at the point on the scale to indicate the beliefs or assumptions about Professional Learning under which your congregation/school operates currently. 1. Jewish education must address not only what students know but also their actions, beliefs, and sense of belonging. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 2. You cannot teach what you have not experienced yourself. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 3. “One-shot” professional development workshops violate good professional development practice. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 4. Congregational leaders will invest in professional learning that demonstrates impact on the lives of congregants. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 5. Teachers will invest more time and resources in their own learning when they see the synagogue valuing it. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 6. Professional learning for teachers is really about changing the student experience. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 7. Teachers should teach according to the core values and beliefs of the synagogue. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 8. Teachers’ capacity to invent solutions to educational problems is a powerful, untapped resource. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 9. Professional learning has little to do with the synagogue’s educational vision. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree 10. To be worthwhile, professional learning has to be designed by outside specialists. 1-strongly disagree 2-disagree 3-agree 4-strongly agree Professional 8! Questions for discussion in your team: 1. On what items do members of your team personally agree and disagree? Consensus is not expected; have a conversation about the differences in your opinions. Share your thinking with one another. How might professional learning look different in action depending on which of these assumptions you accept or reject? 2. How consistent are your personal assumptions with your views of the beliefs about PD/PL operating in your congregation/school? What do you see going on in the congregation/school that leads you to identify these as the operating assumptions? 3. Be prepared—and choose a spokesperson—to share with the full group one highlight of your discussion that feels like it will have important implications for the work you will do in this project. Professional 9! A Case Study: Aligning Professional Learning to Vision in a Congregational Setting The following story describes one Conservative congregation’s attempt to create well developed professional learning aligned to their vision. This material is adapted from Isa Aron’s Becoming a Congregation of Learners (2000). Nurturing the Teachers As Well As the Students, by Dr. Lisa Malik (adapted) Beth Am Israel is a small Conservative Synagogue in the western suburbs of Philadelphia, with a membership of 330. Professional and lay leaders engaged in a process of reflection and visioning, which resulted in Beth Am defining itself as a “Shabbat-centered community where what is learned informs daily living.” Studying Torah, the “tree of life,” and living by its precepts were identified as the content that had the potential to generate shared language, values, problem solving and living for staff and learners of all ages.